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Facebook has changed the world. I mean that; I’m not being dramatic. Families have been reunited. Small businesses are thriving. And romance novels can be found.

Facebook is a unique tool that can be used to create awareness about you, your author brand, and your romance novels – with a little luck, and if used correctly.

Person profiles. When you sign up for Facebook, you create your person profile. Decide if this profile will be professional or personal. Do not make it both (though it’s a good idea to get a little personal on your profile site; readers connect to that). You can change the name on your profile if you decide to use a pen name later on. Be sure to set your profile settings to public so users can find you. Users can search for you by your email address. So create (and use) an author email if you don’t want to be found by your personal one.

You can also follow the example set by other romance authors and have two person profiles under separate email addresses. One for personal, family, and friends. The other for readers. Facebook allows approximately 5,000 friends, so once you reach that number you will need to create a page. Facebook encourages only adding friends you “know.” I’ll leave it up to you to define “know.”

Pages. In the good ole days (a couple months back), Facebook was privately owned and everyone would see status updates posted by pages. Now that Facebook is publicly traded it charges to promote posts. However it’s still a good idea to create a page. Feel free to create an author page and a page for every book (if you can make them relevant), because Facebook doesn’t limit the number of pages you can create. Despite what you hear, fans will see your page’s posts. Not all fans, but some. Now that the basics are out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff.

Use the same profile picture for all your social media.You’re using social media to find more readers. The people you’re targeting are not currently aware of you. They don’t know what you do or what you look like. You will be recognized easier if you look the same everywhere. Your profile picture can be a picture of you or a picture of your book. Consider the latter if you have buy links. You want readers to buy your book, so it’s more important they recognize your book instead of your face.

Put your website and other links in your profile/page. Your website should be visible on the front of your page. Right where mine is below. (This is not an option for your profile. That’s discussed next.)

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The website on the homepage makes it simple for people to find your online presence. Then when readers click Aboutthey need to see your contact information. All of it: website, email, Twitter, Goodreads, Library Thing, Pinterest, and whatever else you have for interaction.

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Be sure to view your own profile and information once you’re finished. There’s a limit to how many words you can use before Facebook requires readers to click a More link to see it all. Making it simple means giving your readers as few clicks as possible. (Don’t believe me? Have you noticed Amazon has the Buy Now With 1-Click button?)

Link to your page from your person profile.Even if this means entering that you are employed by your book or author page. Facebook doesn’t give you the option of putting a website here. so direct Facebook friends to your page.

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Join author groups (with your personal page) and start interacting,notspamming. If an author emails me saying you’ve spammed their group because I told you to, I’m going to blog about Authors Behaving Badly and link it to your webpage (which I will find because you’ll have made it simple for me to do so).

Interact.This is the only way to truly gain readers. Interact with readers who enjoy the same authors you enjoy. Interact with the authors. Do not say one word about your book or your writing career in these groups. Just be. As people become familiar with you they will travel to your profile…and they will see your page. They’ll click that page and see your website. If they care after that, you’re golden.

Be genuine. Contribute meaningful discussion. Embrace the reader and author fan that you are and you will begin making your presence known in the Facebook reader community.

Interact directly with readers using your page.Still do not spam, but here (and on your profile timeline) is where you post meaningful details about your book and writing updates. If every post is about you be prepared to lose friends and likes. But if only some posts are about you people will probably comment. If they care after that, you’re golden.

Consider Facebook ads.For your book, not necessarily your page. You spend money to make money. You make money by selling novels, not by getting page likes. Instructions are here.

Post meaningful content. Sometimes that means a really funny cat picture. (Jody Wallace, I’m thinking of you.) Other times it means posting a link of a publisher asking for interns or of an author looking for beta readers.

About the author

Kristin Anders is a freelance romance-genre editor who loves long dark moments and em dashes. She was a paralegal for six years before founding a romance blog, so she could receive Monica McCarty's next novel as an ARC. Soon after, Kristin became a member of Romance Writers of America, joined a local chapter, and landed an internship with Entangled Publishing.
She now attends writing and editing workshops, edits romance novels full time, and lives happily ever after with her husband, toddler, and chocolate lab.